I have a Lenovo x120e that is not booting properly. When I turn it on, it just opens to a blank screen.

The machine is running Ubuntu 10.04.

Main Details: I shut the lid of the computer while it was running, and then opened it later and noticed that I couldn't get it out of suspend / hibernate mode. I subsequently powered it down by holding the power button. Now when I turn it back on, it just opens to a blank, black screen, as if it is still in suspend / hibernate.

Other Details:

The 10.04 operating system was installed while this HD was in another laptop. Since I moved the HD into this machine, I have been booting another OS.

I never updated the drivers in this operating system to work with this machine. (Does this matter for this particular situation / problem?)

What I have tried so far: I found the REISUB method here but I don't have a SysReq button.

are you see the BIOS screen at all ? if not we should troubleshoot the hardware (and the software that relate to it e.g. BIOS) in order to get your bootstrap process again.
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Hanan N.Dec 20 '11 at 17:16

Have you tried booting with a live/rescue disk?
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jasonwryanDec 20 '11 at 17:38

@jasonwryan I could not see the BIOS screen at all, so I couldn't get into a live/rescue disk.
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Brian DantDec 20 '11 at 19:34

While you are there try to exit out and boot the system again (sometimes
it helps).

If the above doesn't help, try to change the BIOS settings to their defaults (you will see this option in the BIOS menu), then save and exit.

If the above doesn't help, I would suggest a more hardware-based approach by removing the CMOS battery (of course only after you have removed your main battery). Wait for 5 minutes and then boot the system up again.

You can see a picture of your computer's CMOS battery here (the blue circle), and a great guide from Lenovo on how to take apart your Laptop here (page 82). It shouldn't be too hard to do it, but it is your last choice.

I didn't try any of what you suggested, although I do appreciate the effort and useful answer. By the time I had checked this question again, I found a solution. Your post is good information for me for future reference. Kind of makes me want to just rip the machine apart anyway, for fun :)
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Brian DantDec 20 '11 at 19:40

I don't have enough rep to answer my own question yet (8 hour delay). The solution was to let the battery run down. The next time I pressed the power button, it booted into GRUB (before that I was literally powering up and down to a blank black screen).
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Brian DantDec 20 '11 at 19:46

I appreciate the suggestions, but I can't even get to GRUB's boot menu, or anything else that I can control. I literally can only manually power down and power back up, and this just brings me right back to a blank black screen. Thanks for your time.
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Brian DantDec 20 '11 at 15:14